Aim:To screen host proteins that interact with enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 EspF. Materials & methods: Flow cytometry and high-throughput sequencing were used to screen interacting proteins. Molecular function, biological processes and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways were studied using the DAVID online tool. Glutathione S-transferase pull down and dot blotting were used to verify the interactions. Results: 293 host proteins were identified to associate with EspF. They were mainly enriched in RNA splicing (p = 0.005), ribosome structure (p = 0.012), and involved in 109 types of signaling pathways. SNX9 and ANXA6 were confirmed to interact with EspF. Conclusion: EspF interacts with ANXA6; they may form a complex to manipulate the process of phagocytosis; EspF plays a highlighted pathogenic role in enterohemorrhagic E. coli infection process. Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7 is an important food-borne causative agent in sporadic outbreaks of illness such as diarrhea, hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic-uremic syndrome. Severe symptoms may even lead to death [1][2][3][4]. Research into EHEC has mainly explored the development of attaching and effacing (A/E) intestinal lesions and the secretion of Shiga toxin in EHEC infection [5][6][7]. The protein EspF is one of the multifunctional effectors of A/E lesions induced by EHEC and enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC). EspF participates in a number of damage processes in host cells, targeting mitochondria and nucleoli [6,8] and disrupting the tight junctions (TJs) of intestinal epithelial cells [9], leading to cytoskeletal rearrangements, actin polymerization and pedestal formation [10]. EspF thus emerges as the 'Swiss army knife' of a bacterial pathogen [11,12]. EHEC O157:H7 employs a type-III secretion system to export toxic factors and effector proteins to host cells after adhering to the brush border of epithelial cells [5,[13][14]. The production of virulence factors, subsequent invasion and diffusion, and the interaction of effector proteins with host proteins are key steps in EHEC O157:H7 pathogenesis. The mechanism by which EspF breaks through the intestinal epithelial barrier into host cells, the host proteins that EspF interacts with, and how cellular damage, and even apoptosis, result remain unclear. Studying the pathogen-host interaction process will increase the emerging knowledge about EHEC O157:H7 pathogenesis.The EspF protein has been shown to induce apoptosis after 'injection' into host cells [1]. The N-terminal (1-73 amino acids [aa]) of this approximately 27 kDa protein contains a secretory signal (1-20 aa), a mitochondrialtargeting signal (1-24 aa) and a nucleolar-targeting domain (21-74 aa); 73-248 aa consists of four proline-rich repeats (PRRs), each containing a eukaryotic cell sorting nexin 9 (SNX9) protein-binding site SH3 motif, an